Cooking with Fernet Branca

Gerald Samper #1

by James Paterson

- See more at: http://faber.co.uk/catalog/cooking-wi...

Gerald Samper, an effete Englishman, lives on a hilltop in Tuscany. He is a ghostwriter for celebrities, and a foodie, whose weird tastes include 'Mussels in Chocolate and Garlic' and 'Fernet Branca Ice Cream'. His idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, a vulgar woman from a former Soviet republic now run by gangsters, notably male members of her family. She is a composer in a neo-folk style who claims to be writing a score for a trendy Italian film director. The neighbours' lives disastrously intertwine. The entourages of the rock star and the director come and go; mysterious black helicopters bring news of mayhem in Voynova, Marta's homeland; and along the way the English obsession with Tuscany is satirized mercilessly.

"A playful book, full of fun and games. There is so much pleasure to be had from Hamilton-Paterson's delight in language and wicked way with unreliable narrators. . . . The book's effect is achieved almost entirely through the comic magnetism of a single character."-The Times Literary Supplement

"A skillful, highly original writer. . . . The elegant language, witty asides and vivid observations are memorable."-The Literary Review

"I'm bowled over by the sheer imaginative brilliance of the man."-Barry Humphries

"I love his elegant and intensely evocative style: strangeness lifts off his pages like a rare perfume."-J.G. Ballard

"A work of comic genius."-The Independent

"A wonderfully rich alloy of sub-Wildean witticisms and nonsense, Cooking with Fernet Branca had me laughing out loud and uproariously."-Ian Thomson, Sunday Telegraph

Gerald Samper, an effete English snob, has his own private hilltop in Tuscany, where he wiles away his time working as a ghostwriter for celebrities and inventing wholly original culinary concoctions-including ice cream made with garlic and the bitter, herb-based liqueur of the book's title. Gerald's idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, on the run from a crime-riddled former soviet republic. A series of hilarious misunderstandings brings this odd couple into ever closer and more disastrous proximity.

James Hamilton-Paterson's first novel, Gerontius, won the Whitbread Award. He is an acclaimed author of nonfiction books, including Seven-Tenths, Three Miles Down, and Playing with Water. He currently lives in Italy.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Italy, Food, British Literature, Book Club, Comedy

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

James Paterson was a Scottish journalist, writer, and antiquary. He contributed most of the succinct biographies which accompanied John Kay's A Series of Original Portraits and Character Etchings.

For the American writer of mysteries and thrillers, see James Patterson

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

SOTTO IL SALE DI TOSCANA



Gerald Samper è un ghost writer: scrive (auto)biografie di campioni dello sport che hanno molto successo. Hanno successo sia i libri che Gerald scrive senza firmarli, che le persone di cui scrive, per quanto, a parte distinguersi in qualche sport, sono generalmente delle nullità umane.
Può permettersi di scrivere più o meno dove vuole. E questa volta ha scelto l’Italia, ovviamente la Toscana, per la precisione le Apuane.
Gerald è snob come pochi. E inventa ricette di cucina assurde, spacciandole per sperimentali, tra tutte le quali solo una è vagamente commestibile secondo quanto suggerisce lo stesso Hamilton-Paterson nelle interviste: le cozze al cioccolato.



La seccantissima vicina Marta, una massa di capelli crespi con al centro una faccia brufolosa, viene dall’immaginaria Repubblica di Voynovia, che assomiglia tanto alla Russia o giù di lì. Si spaccia per compositrice di colonne sonore, e quindi fa rumore.
Marta è in fuga da suo padre che è un boss della mafia est-europea.
Anche Marta propone ricette di cucina assurde: ma le sue non sono inventate, sono quelle tipiche dell’immaginaria Repubblica di Voynovia. Orrore!

La vicenda è raccontata a capitoli alternati da entrambi i personaggi, Gerald e Marta, accomunati da cordiale antipatia: ognuno offre il suo punto di vista, e il lettore è libero di scegliere quale adottare.
Se Marta invita a cena Gerald, l’inglese è tutto contento d’essere l’unico ospite, perché è noto che gli inviti a casa d’altri generano “competizione contributiva”. Ed ecco la spiegazione regalataci:
Si tratta di una sindrome storicamente accertata… Andando a Betlemme, un Re Magio da solo si sarebbe probabilmente presentato con una scatola di After Eight.



Una cosa accomuna i due contendenti vicini di casa: la passione per il Fernet Branca. Non è chiaro chi lo versi nei bicchierini per primo: ne vanno entrambi matti. Gerald, per esempio, tra le tante propone il gelato all’aglio e Fernet.
Sembra che le cose si stiano mettendo bene. Sono passati due giorni dalla nostra cena e ancora nessun segno di Marta. Lo considero un trionfo culinario: l’uso ingegnoso del cibo come arma d’attacco. Il gelato all’aglio e Fernet Branca non sarà forse molto raffinato, ma è molto efficace e ho la sensazione, avendovi dato la ricetta, di avervi messo in mano la versione pacifista della famosa 44 Magnum di Clint Eastwood. “Fammi onore, Marta” devo aver detto, e con mia grande sorpresa lei mi ha onorato prendendone tre massicce porzioni. Se fossi un bravo vicino, a quest’ora sarei già stato da lei per assicurarmi che sia ancora viva, ma non lo sono, quindi non l’ho fatto.



La satira di Hamilton-Paterson, che ha effettivamente vissuto per anni in Toscana, a Castiglion Fiorentino, in un casale abbandonato da decenni, è diretta contro i suoi connazionali, e gli americani e gli stranieri in genere, e i nuovi ricchi che arrivano dalla Russia, quelli che hanno inventato il Chiantishire, quelli come la collega scrittrice Frances Mayes, autrice del best seller Sotto il sole di Toscana, che ha portato a Cortona un turismo inaspettato, ma anche fatto triplicare il prezzo di case e alloggi. E anche i britannici producono dell’olio evo per il quale a Londra pagano prezzi da rapina. E così i furbi agenti immobiliari indigeni. E tutti quelli che hanno trasformato i cuochi in chef e poi in maître à penser.


Gli studi cinematografici Pisorno a Tirrenia, non più attivi dal 1969.

Hamilton-Paterson non si fa mancare nulla, e introduce anche un regista di film porno al lavoro nei gloriosi studi cinematografici Pisorno (tra Pisa e Livorno).
Romanzo divertente, maligno, urticante, un cocktail al vetriolo (ooops, al Fernet Branca). Oggi si definirebbe politicamente scorretto.


James Hamilton-Paterson.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 3.75* of five

$1.99 ON KINDLE!

The Publisher Says: Gerald Samper, an effete English snob, has his own private hilltop in Tuscany, where he wiles away his time working as a ghostwriter for celebrities and inventing wholly original culinary concoctions-including ice cream made with garlic and the bitter, herb-based liqueur of the book's title. Gerald's idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, on the run from a crime-riddled former Soviet republic. A series of hilarious misunderstandings brings this odd couple into ever closer and more disastrous proximity.

James Hamilton-Paterson's first novel, Gerontius, won the Whitbread Award. He is an acclaimed author of nonfiction books, including Seven-Tenths, Three Miles Down, and Playing with Water, He currently lives in Italy.

My Review: Cooking With Fernet Branca is part of oddball publisher Europa Editions's sinister plot to make Murrikins like me aware of the strange and sinister world of lit'rachoor published beyond our shores. Muriel Barbery owes her Murrikin presence to them, too. We all know how *that* turned out....

Well, before moving any farther along in this review process, let me send out the call: Does anyone know how to get hold of (wicked double entendre optional) actor John Barrowman? You know, Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood fame? He is literally missing the key to Murrikin stardom by not reading, optioning, and making this book into a movie. It suits every single national prejudice we have: Eastern Europeans as sinister lawbreaking peasants who eat strangely shaped, colored, and named things and call them foods (like Twinkies, Cheetos, and Mountain Dew are *normal*); Englishmen as dudis (you'll have to read the book for that translation) who do eccentric off-the-wall things with food that are repulsively named and gruesomely concocted (spotted dick? bubble-and-squeak?); and Italians as supercilious effete cognoscenti of world culture, who possess the strangest *need* for vulgarity.

The characters in this hilarious romp are the most dysfunctional group of misfits and ignoramuses and stereotypes ever deployed by an English-language author. They do predictable things, yet Hamilton-Paterson's deftly ironic, cruelly flensing eye and word processor cause readerly glee instead of readerly ennui to ensue. The whole bizarre crew...the lumpenproletariat ex-Soviet composer, the Italian superdirector long past his prime, the English snob who refers to Tuscany's glory as "Chiantishire" and "Tuscminster"...gyrates and shudders and clumps towards a completely foreseeable climactic explosion (heeheehee). And all the time, snarking and judging and learning to depend on each other. In the end, the end is nigh for all the established relationships and the dim, Fernet Branca-hangover-hazed outlines of the new configurations are, well, the English say it best...dire.

Read it. Really, do. And I dare you not to laugh at these idiots! Don't be put off by the sheer hideousness of the American edition's cover, in all its shades-of-purple garish grisliness. The charm of reading the book is that one needn't look at that...that...illustration...on the cover, but inflict it on those not yet In The Know enough to be reading it themselves.

And seriously...John Barrowman needs to know about this. Pass it on!

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am laughing again as I turn to this, on page four: The day has dawned bright in every sense and I am making good progress up a ladder painting the kitchen – the most important room in the house – in contrasting shades of mushroom and eau de Nil. Anyone can do the white-walls-and-black-beams bit, but it takes aesthetic confidence and an original mind to make something of a Tuscan mountain farmhouse that isn’t merely Frances Mayes. It also takes a complete absence of salt-of-the-earth peasants and their immemorial aesthetic input. It is all rather heartening and as I work I break cheerfully into song. I have been told by friendly cognoscenti that I have a pleasant light tenor, and I am just giving a Rossini aria a good run for its money when suddenly a voice shouts up from near my ankles: ‘Excuse, please. I am Marta. Is open your door, see, and I am come.’ I break off at ‘tutte le norme vigenti’ and look down to find a shock of frizzy hair with an upturned sebaceous face at its centre.

In this first part, the most hilarious two-dozen pages in the book, we view the world as seen by Englishman Gerald Samper – who refers to himself as a “Shropshire Samper” – hunkered down in a cottage about as far off the beaten path as it is possible to get in the Apuan Alps of Northern Italy, practicing his trade as a ghost-writer, working on the autobiography of the lead singer of a boy-band; but also taking the opportunity to devote more time to his passion for cooking.

The next section is told from Marta’s point of view. Despite her Borat-like butchering of the English language, Marta, from the fictional ex-Soviet country of Voynovia – Voy-NO-via! – is every bit Gerry’s intellectual equal. She is a composer, and has come to Italy to work on a score for a famous cult film director named Piero Pacini, although she has not seen any of Pacini’s films. It is through Marta’s eyes that we see “Gerree’s” flaws.

Marta ends up copying Gerry’s abysmal kitchen singing for the film, which for some reason is a perfect fit – it’s possible this is a pornographic movie, though we aren’t really sure. Gerry finds Marta slovenly and her music absolutely horrible – not recognizing its source. The agent has told each that the other would only be there a month and wanted nothing but seclusion. And there the misunderstandings and misadventures begin.

Fernet Branca is “an herb-based liqueur” perhaps better described as “a bitter Italian spirit” since not only is it liberally used in cooking, but both characters drink copious amounts of the stuff, each of course blaming the other for the excessive consumption. I assume also that the author intended at least some of his readers with too much time on their hands to stumble upon the fact that Fernet Branca is the preferred drink of the title character of Notti di Cabira, by Fellini; linking us to Marta’s Pacini, perhaps?

In any case, “fooding” as Marta is wont to call cuisine, is just one common fondness these two share. For their first dinner together, she serves him shonka, which Gerry describes as a gross sausage the colour of rubberwear and as full of lumps as a prison mattress. When he pokes it with the point of his knife, he hears the sound of a boil being lanced, yet in no time at all he’s eaten a good two inches of the thing, with a mere yard to go. Gerry provides the dessert – Garlic and Fernet Branca Ice Cream – created to discourage Marta from becoming habitual in her visitations to his habitat. Of course she polishes it off with gusto, washed down with copious draughts of Fernet Branca.

The story inevitably spins off into many directions – perhaps too many – and I have to confess that I was insufficiently exposed (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) to Monty Python in my youth, so it’s possible I just didn’t “get it”, or else it was simply impossible for the author to keep his readers’ spirits up after such a hilarious beginning.

Technically, I must say I very much admired the author’s use of the “unreliable narrator” here – one of the best examples I’ve read in quite some time; especially using two alternating narrators, recalling One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding, but fully milked in Fernet Branca for humour. I also found “seasoning” enough sprinkled throughout the story to read through to its conclusion, even though I’d guessed it beforehand; as you will, too.

But don’t let that stop you. Cooking with Fernet Branca is a light, airy narrative that spins around two unique characters, is filled with many strange dishes and goings-on, and of course, after so much mention of Fernet Branca, you might feel as though you’ve actually tasted it! At the very least, you will certainly hesitate before sipping an unfamiliar liqueur or tasting an exotic dish, especially after reading the recipe for Alien Pie, which calls for 500 grams of baby beet; a single drop of household paraffin; 1 kg smoked cat, off the bone, and… I expect you get the picture! Buon appetito!

[Sketchbook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cooking, crime & celebritizing collide - often hilariously -
in this satiric tease on rustic retreats. Hamilton-Paterson
writes with an assured and idiosyncratic comic spirit.
Two crackpot neighbors are thrown together in Tuscany
-- a hotspot of distilled lunacy. Their mischievousness
becomes a perfect uncorked stimulant.

Meet a Brit ghostwriter for celebs who settles in Tusc to write and cook in peace. Then a hearty woman composer fr Eastern Europe plumps down nearby to ponder a score for a fawncy Italian film director. She happens to have a gangster brother. Can they all get along? Is there a screwball life after death...want some eels cooked in chocolate..? Buon divertimento !

[Jacob S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit it, I was click-baited into this by the headline/title and had no idea where the book would take me.
However, as I hold Fernet Branca in high esteem, the temptation was irresistible, and as the saying goes, “never lay down a temptation, it may not come again”.
Once in my eternal youth I travelled through Uganda, with a bottle of Fernet Branca held closely to my heart. At time of travel a cholera outbreak was closing shops and markets at the leisurely speed of one mile/hour behind me, giving me a day´s head start. Thus, luckily escaping it, I am a true believer in the virtues of Fernet Branca, preventive as well as healing, not to mention it´s social aspects.
That was my personal prologue …



”Under the Tuscan Sun”, right outside Viareggio, on the brink of a ravine, there are two old houses with a, sometimes, fabulous view to the Mediterranean.
By the sleaziness of the local real estate agent, they were both sold off as “secluded and tranquil, “and the neighbor rarely visits””
Just the kind of house Gerry the somewhat successful ghostwriter and Marta the composer from Voynovia would settle down for.

It soon turns out that tranquility will be hard to find, and the neighbor is very much at home.
Even strained from the very beginning, both parties are eager to maintain a good neighbor relationship, if only the other part would leave me in peace!

The game is afoot, and we get to learn Gerry and Marta from each other´s perspective, both guessing and imagining what the neighbor is like, and both being wrong most of the time.

I´m not going to spoil your fun, for fun it is when two people of very different backgrounds are trying to figure what the other part is up to. The very British stiff upper lip collides with an ex-Soviet exiled “fear the worst from the West”, and even the pictures are caricatured, they do not seem that far from reality.

In no particular order, you will encounter a famous film director, a boyband front man, a mysterious night-flyer and a few more who are needed to make the storyline possible.
Add to this a handful of very interesting recipes, recipes in which Fernet Branca will play a not unimportant part, Voynian delicacies and some good advice on DIY. And not least a generous share of … Fernet Branca.

Sometimes silly, sometimes good-humored, but never boring, this meant-for-entertainment-only-novel gets a solid 4 stars.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Are you hungry for cat pot pie, parrots 'n' carrots, horse custard, or deep-fried mice?



The snobbish British writer and weird cook, Gerald Samper has moved into a villa in the Italian mountains. Here he finds he has a neighbor Marta, whose Russian based family are crime lords.



This odd couple produce an amazing series misunderstandings and dangerous situations.

One of Gerald's recipes...

"Sometimes I lie in bed and cheer myself up by gloating over the culinary challenges faced and overcome in the heroic cuisine of yesteryear. Maj.-Gen. Sir Aubrey Lutterworth Elements of Raj Cookery (1887) would surely be on every insomniac's bedside table were it not so rare. He is full of cunning ways with fruit bats, python etc. and his recipes breathe a manly simplicity.

'With a sharp dhauji remove the paws of a medium-sized panda. Discard the animal. Soak the claws overnight in a crock of fresh tikkhu juice. In the monsoon months it will be found expedient to mount a guard since the smell of tikkhu fermenting is irresistible to both upland tiger and bamboo wolf.' ...

Written, of course, at a time when the earth was ours and the bounty thereof. Nowadays we have pizza; and just look at the state of things."



I have not described the weirder recipes to protect readers with delicate stomachs.

Enjoy!

[Oriana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't manage to read this in Mexico, though I was told it would be the perfect smart-person airplane book, but I did pick it up as soon as I got back, and it was very much as promised: dryly hilarious, fast-moving, clever, and a whole lot of fun.

Cooking With Fernet Branca is dual-ly narrated by two next-door neighbors living on the Italian countryside: Gerard Samper, a very proper Englishman and self-proclaimed "master chef" (more on that soon), who makes his money ghostwriting autobiographies for idiotic sports stars; and Marta, a somewhat bumpkin-ish composer from Eastern Europe (Voynovia, actually) who has been commissioned to write a film score for a famous arty and controversial Italian film director.

So. Gerard and Marta are incredibly well-drawn characters, from her pidgin English and lovingly frazzled appearance to his fastidious mannerisms and constant stream of sarcastic inner monologue. They are both a bit unreliable as narrators, which is done with great subtlety at times, and then become very overt when the narrative switches sides and we get to see the same scene retold through the other's eyes. Their relationship is so complex, so changing, so real, that it carries the entire book brilliantly.

See, they hate each other. I mean, each was told when they bought their houses that their immediate neighbor was quiet and calm, and would only be home maybe one month out of the year. But Marta's brother keeps stopping by in a helicopter in the middle of the night, and Gerard sings horrifically off-key opera while he avoids work by loudly building fences and other such, and each drives the other totally crazy with their drunkenness and terrifying cooking.

And oh, the cooking!! This is where the book's darkest humor shimmers horrifyingly. Gerard, who punctuates his sections with explicitly detailed recipes, loves to cook. And the things he cooks are...well...not for the faint of heart. Examples include: stuffed udder in butterscotch sauce, smoked cat pot pie, parrots 'n' carrots, horse custard, and more and more. In fact, one of the subtle ways in which he wages war with Marta is with cuisine mépriseur, the cuisine of contempt. She – though unwittingly – does about the same thing, by always trying to feed him homemade Voynovian treats, which are every bit as horrifying to his palate as his deep-fried mice would be to hers.

In any case, of course, they bicker and fight and scheme and plot, and eventually work their way into one another's good graces, more or less. There is much much more to this book than I have let on here, but I hope I have at least...whet some appetites, as it were, because I really think James Hamilton-Paterson ought to be better known. I plan to get both the other books he's written about Gerard and Marta tout suite, before the fall ends and I am expected to read more, er, serious literature.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A zany farce populated by oddball characters, most of whom become more endearing as things unravel. Very well-crafted and just packed with rich, carefully considered language. I thoroughly enjoyed the circus and laughed out loud in several spots.

[Issicratea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an odd one to judge: generally a pretty run-of-the-mill exercise, but with moments of real comic genius, in my view.

I should say that I don’t normally read comic novels (or intentionally comic novels), and reading this one rather reminded me why. There can be something hectoring about someone trying constantly to amuse you. I also have a very low tolerance of fart jokes.

I was driven to comedy in this instance partly for circumstantial reasons (as an antidote to miserable February weather and a miserable February workplace), but partly also because Cooking with Fernet Branca has got some very good reviews. I liked the prospect of a novel narrated by his-and-hers unreliable narrators, and the Italian setting was another lure for me (off-piste Italy, as well, high in the Apuan Alps behind Camaiore, north of Lucca.)

In the event, I found CWFB eminently forgettable—it’s already fading fast, although I only finished it a couple of days ago—to the extent that it seems rather strange to me that it managed to scrape its way on to the Booker longlist in 2004. Presumably it got there by virtue of its themes of art and commerce and compromise, levered rather clunkily into the novel through the professions of the odd-couple narrators, Marta and Gerald, who are, respectively, a composer of art-film music and a ghost writer for celebrities (or “amanuensis to knuckleheads,” in Gerald’s characteristically scathing phrase.)

What I liked best in CWFB were Gerald’s recipes, which are a splendid antic sub-genre in themselves. (I also liked Gerald’s invented Donizettian opera arias, mainly based on libretti found on the labels of DIY products: Non disperdere nell’ambiente; Nuoce gravemente alla salute.) Gerald’s culinary idiom is the crazed love-child of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s and Heston Blumenthal’s. It combines the finicky (one recipe calls for a single stamen of saffron) with the queasily red-in-tooth-and-claw (“Jack Russells are a bugger to bone.”) Alien Pie, with its smoked-cat base and “jaunty” buzzard-feather garnish, is surely Gerald’s masterpiece, but I also enjoyed such simple treats as Log Jam, made from steeped oak twigs (a technique “probably lost since the Late Bronze Age”)—not to mention the promising notion of constructing recipes on the basis of consonance (Moth Broth; Poodles and Noodles; Horse Sauce.)

As someone with the good fortune to be amorously paired with an ambitious cook (though happily not quite as ambitious as Gerald), I have picked up enough familiarity with the world of haute culinary fantasy that Hamilton-Paterson is parodying to have a sense of how well done this is. Pretentious cooking is an easy enough satirical target—everyone does it—but it’s not easy to do it this well.

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished the book and then went to find out more about the author. I had never heard of him before choosing it from the back pages of a book that had brief synopses of books published by Europa Editions. Turns out this guy is sort of a loner which is fine by me. He has written works of poetry and some non-fiction. His first work of fiction, Gerontius, a reconstruction of a journey made by the composer Sir Edward Elgar along the River Amazon in 1923, won a Whitbread Award for First Novel in 1989. But what got him bonus points from me is that he is friends with Ronald Blythe (aged 98 years), author of Akenfield, one of my favorite books (a literary portrait of an English village as told by the villagers themselves via oral history interviews). Any friend of Ronald Blythe is a friend of mine. 😊 And he is a regular contributor to Granta, a very fine literary periodical published out of the UK.

It was a good read. 3 stars. The book won praise from such authors as J. G. Ballard and Michael Dibdin and numerous literary reviews (including Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review, The Guardian Review).

This novel is told from the views of the two main protagonists in the novel, Gerald and Marta. They both are vacationing in Tuscany Italy far from the maddening crowds, and live in adjacent dwellings. He has chosen the house because it is secluded, and he is a writer — he is finishing up a biography of a lead singer of a boy band (Gerald is snobbish and is not jazzed about writing such biographies because he feels his subjects are morons and such writing is beneath him but hey it pays the rent and or in this case a house in Italy for the summer). Marta has chosen her house because it is secluded, and she needs peace and quiet to compose a musical score that will accompany a film that is being made of dubious distinction (if her father from a former Soviet country found out he would have a stroke).

This is a humorous book…there is rarely a serious moment in the book. So, you need to go into it with that mind set…nothing is really believable. If you are accepting of that then you very well might find the novel to be amusing. I found it to be amusing overall and here and there really quite laugh-out-loud funny. The guy has an outrageous and sometimes irreverent sense of humor.

It was 281 pages long…my interest flagged after 80 or so pages but it picked up in the latter half of the book. So, I stuck it out…I am glad I did so rather than do a DNF.

The chapters alternate between Gerald telling what is going on with him (and always involves his rendering of events involving Marta) and Marta telling what is going on with her (and always involves her rendering of events involving Gerald [or Jer-ree as she calls him]). Both of them think the other one is an alcoholic, given their proclivity to drink huge quantities of Fernet Branca wine.
When there are chapters narrated by Gerald, he gives us some of his recipes of things he is making. The description of the food prep and ingredients are really believable and is humorously told. Here is one example in which he tells us how to prepare Otter with Lobster Sauce. Actually, it is not as hard as you would think. You just have to know when otter is in season at Whole Foods, and who doesn’t have these simple ingredients in their kitchen pantry:
• 1.5 kg otter chunks
• 8 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 8 medium nasturtium leaves, chopped
• 1 slices shallot
• 150 ml dry white wine
• ¼ teaspoon sugar
• 1 saffron stamen (really and truly: one single thread)
• 300 gm lobster meat
• 1 anchovy fillet
• 1 tablespoon tiny capers
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Fernet Branca
• Mayonnnaise

After listing these ingredients, Hamilton-Paterson then spends close to a page with the instructions and sometimes I wonder…it really sounds believable. And it’s not boring because of such stuff like this he throws in:
• “…Then make about half a pint (300 ml) of mayonnaise. Incidentally, this is the only recipe I know that is associated with a curse. Two acquaintances who tried to make the dish died within the month, one in Buckinghamshire and the other in Somerset. By the quirkiest of mishaps both fell into rivers in spate and vanished into millraces. The cleric’s body was found three weeks later, much disfigured. The drama teacher was never seen again. On enquiring I discovered that each had used commercial mayonnaise purchased in a supermarket for this recipe, so there is some justice in this world after all, even if a bit on the lenient side. Certainly the Bishop should have known better. No decent cook gets to heaven by way of Hellman’s.”

For the above a spate is “a large number of similar things or events appearing or occurring in quick succession”, and a millrace is “the channel carrying the swift current of water that drives a mill wheel”.

Notes:
• Fernet-Branca is a traditional Italian digestivo made from a secret mix of herbs including myrrh, saffron, chamomile and gentian. The spirit is so popular in Argentina that the brand built a second distillery in Buenos Aires to serve Latin America only. (Fernet-Branca sold in the US is all made in Milan.)
• Gerald was musing about this, and I liked it so much I copy it here: “…As a matter of fact, reading a book over a solitary evening meal in a foreign restaurant is normally one of my greatest pleasures, (followed by) the particular enjoyment of choosing a meal from a menu in a language I can’t understand. Not knowing what I shall shortly be eating is just as exciting as not knowing what I shall be reading in half a chapter’s time.
• There are two sequels to this book: Amazing Disgrace (2006) and Rancid Pansies (2008).

Reviews
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
• https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/bo...
• From The New Yorker’s Briefly Noted section, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
• https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...

[Stacia · Rating 4 out of 5]

After you've read too many lovely, wish-you-were-here travel memoirs & foodie books, Cooking with Fernet Branca is the amusing & biting antidote. I thoroughly enjoyed this parody & it had me literally laughing out loud at times. I'd give it 3.5 stars overall; I'll round it up to 4 stars because it made me laugh out loud when reading at Starbucks.

P.S. Don't read this book while eating... for two reasons.
1) You may choke on your food from laughing.
2) The included 'recipes' are revolting. LOL.

Two foreigners, Gerald & Marta, have bought neighboring houses in Italy, each hoping for a beautiful location that's peaceful. Gerald wants to concentrate on his career (ghostwriter of athlete autobiographies) & (heinous) cooking; Marta wants to concentrate on her career as a composer (currently working on a movie soundtrack for a famous Italian director). Both are rather put out to discover each other, since having a neighbor leads to all kinds of interruptions, misread intentions, noise, etc.... Here's a fun quote from early in the book after Gerald went to dinner at neighbor Marta's house:

"Things are looking good. Two days have now gone by since our dinner and nary a squeak out of Marta. I'm counting this as a culinary triumph: the ingenious use of food as an offensive weapon. Garlic ice cream with Fernet Branca may lack subtlety but it is highly effective and I feel that by giving you the recipe I have placed a pacifist's version of Clint Eastwood's famous .44 Magnum in your hands. "Make my evening, Marta," I might have said. And to my amazement she did, taking not one but three massive helpings. If I were a good neighbour I would have dropped in on her by now to make sure she is still alive. But I'm not, so I haven't."

--------------------

I had an hour alone at Starbucks today to start this book. (Ah, lovely!) Within a few minutes, I was sniggering so much that I actually snorted out loud. (This as I was trying so hard to keep my laughing to myself as I sat there alone -- you know, I didn't want to be tagged as the crazy lady at that table over there....) Oh well....

Obviously, so far, so good on this one!

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A witty & hilarious satire of all the "A Year in Provence," "Under the Tuscan Sun" books that romanticize the expat life in Europe. Once again, an overly-refined Brit goes to Italy to follow his writing muse. Please note -- he is a ghostwriter of biographies for celebrities, not a Nobel nominee. That fact does not limit his pretensions whatsoever. Settling into his quaint abode, he is horrified when his new neighbor moves in. Also an expat, she is fleeing her crimelord, overprotective family in Eastern Europe. Now the hijinks begin... a series of wrong conclusions & misunderstandings makes for very funny encounters. The plot brings in some other wryly-drawn characters & Hamilton-Paterson has a gift for language. Footnote -- Fernet Branca is the most vile liqueur I have ever tasted -- Our Writer Hero uses it as the centerpiece for several bizarre recipes of which he is unduly proud.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hamilton-Paterson flawlessly folds Into this souffle many ingredients seemingly disparate, resulting in a desire for more. Told in alternating voices, the plot soars hilariously. Marta, a composer from Eastern Europe, and Gerald, a ghost-writing ex-pat from England, live in mutual disharmony, misdirection and misunderstanding on a Tuscan hilltop. It helps, but is not necessary, for the reader to be somewhat knowledgeable about Pier Paolo Pasolini, East European mafia, gourmet cooking. Add to this, Boy Bands, UFOs, ghostwritten "autobiographies," Italian filmmaking. Not since "Somebody is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe" have there been recipes of such escalating ludicrousness. Hilarious! I'm gratified to learn that there are at least two books that follow this one.

[Marie-Therese · Rating 2 out of 5]

I imagine there is someone in this big wide world that finds this laboured, cynical, heavy-handed lump of a satirical novel amusing, but that someone is decidedly not me.

[Jane Routley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun journey with two unreliable narrators. A wonderful send up of I bought a Tuscan farm novels, Englishman abroad, Cooking novels and Italian film makers. And all manner of other things. I liked Marta more than Gerald and would have read any number of books about her. Satire really. Mindblowing recipes such as Mussels in chocolate sauce. But i did make a very sucessful Coca cola and Fernt Branca cake.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whatever else we can say about James Hamilton-Paterson, he is a very funny man. If you ever found yourself in the Italian countryside gazing at the villa next door and wondering who lives there and who, for gosh sakes, is coptering in and out, after reading this novel, you may very well decide you don’t really want to know. It may be entangling, and may, after all, be the end of all you hold dear.

Gerald Samper, British biographer to the rich and famous, buys an old villa in need of repair in Tuscany’s Apuan Alps region. He is told, as is his nearby neighbor, that the owner of the nearby villa is rarely in residence so his quest for privacy and solitude is guaranteed. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, the resident of the villa he can see from his own is none other than a well-to-do refugee from a Soviet republic, with all her entangling connections.

Samper likes cooking, and we are treated to recipes inspired by the abundant local produce, but dreamt up entirely within the convoluted confines of Samper’s own twisted mind: Mussels in Chocolate, say, or Baked Pears in Gorgonzola with Cinnamon Cream, Lampreys in Sherry, Alien Pie, which features smoked cat mixed with baby beets, nasturtium leaves, pureed prunes, and green bacon (what on earth…?), or my personal favorite, Tuna Stuffed with Prunes in Marmite Butter. But Samper deprecates (with good reason) the specialties his neighbor offers him, delicacies delivered direct from the former Soviet republic of Voynovia. As described by Samper:

”…brightly colored voynovian objects that were delicate to the same extent that traffic cones are. There were awesome pellets like miniature doughnuts wrapped in candied angelica leaf and injected with chili sauce. Others looked like testicles set in dough. I gathered these were pigeon’s eggs and couldn’t catch her name for them although the phrase that came to me immediately was Christ on a Tricycle. Spearmint eggs?”

But this book is not about cooking, despite the title. It is about living the good life in Tuscany among other artists—writers, musicians, filmmakers, realtors--magicians of all stripes. And what of Fernet Branca? It is a digestif concocted in Italy that, given as a gift to the new arrivals of Le Roccie, is purchased a second time to return the courtesy, and becomes a central feature of the misunderstandings among the residents and visitors there. It is described in Wikipedia as having the flavor of “black-licorice-flavored Listerine."

[Hana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Snobbish and pretentious guy with crazy recipes somewhere in Italian pastoral mythical rural land. Alone and crazy enjoying his silence. Until a woman from East comes and ruins his daily routine.
The narrator changes focus from woman to a man, telling this story from both point of view, which is diametrical different.
You'll meet funny creatures, even some mob and boy bend celebrity with traumatic surreal experience. You'll laugh at him and you'll laugh with him.
So friggin hillarious.
And then again, so friggin hillarious. And then, I will not say that again. I'll say just read it, for God's sake!!!
Just do it. :)

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witty and goofy, complex, farcical. Lots of somewhat contradictory adjectives come to mind. The recipes are truly horrendous and therefore truly hilarious. The plot is bizarre and entertaining. The two main characters take turns telling their stories in first person, and their differences and similarities are fascinating to watch develop. A fun and twisted book. I love the fact that this was nominated for a Booker prize--not what you'd think was a typical nominee!

[Dvora Treisman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is indeed witty. If not for the wonderful writing and use of language, I would have rated it lower, for in fact, I didn't enjoy it very much. I think the problem may have been the humor which perhaps was aimed at a British audience and the recipes, that others may have found hilarious, left me unmoved. In any case, I didn't get much of it and very little made me laugh. Ah, but the writing, the wit, that was worth the read.

[janis · Rating 4 out of 5]

one of the funniest books i've ever read.

"Incidentally, this is the only recipe I know [for "Otter with Lobster Sauce"] that is associated with a curse."
other recipes include "smoked cat" and "mussels in chocolate".

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious. The narrator is a pompous twit through and through, that's what makes it great. Interspersed with recipes that get progressively more and more insane, and I think they all include a bit of mankind's most vile aperitif -- fernet branca.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Umm.. parts were laugh-out-loud hilarious, parts were ineffably tedious- overall a mad and random train wreck of a book. I peered through my fingers, unable to stop reading but couldn't wait for it to end.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

one of 3 about gerald (gerreee!) and Marta? there are at least 2 of these titles anyway.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is true to the novel. There *is* a lot of cooking with Fernet Branca, as well as a lot of drinking of Fernet Branca. Essentially the novel is a send-up of the "Brit in Provence/Italy/Greece/Somewhere Sunny Where The People are Strange" books. The Brit (Gerald Samper) in this case is a ghost writer who thinks he has found his idyllic Italian mountain top villa to complete his latest ghost book. But the next door neighbor (Marta, there is always a next door neighbor, apparently, in the aforementioned books) is a thorn in his side with her nocturnal helicopter visits and banging away on her piano (she is a composer.)

The novel is written in their opposing viewpoints - and both are unreliable enough to see what each other gets wrong about the other. Part of the fun in the book is spotting the way each character gets their view of themselves wildly wrong. For instance, both think the other neighbor is besotted with Fernet Branca, when in reality both of them dip into the bitter liqueur to about equal degrees.

And then there is the sheer horribleness of the recipes that Samper comes up with, that he thinks are the hautest of haute cuisine. The first one you see is a Garlic/Fernet Branca ice cream. We are led to believe that this is a joke to scare away the neighbor as a Trojan Dessert. However, as further execrable recipes follow, we see that Gerald might really be more of a twit than at first glance. He is fond of using pets in stews, for instance, and debates the qualities of certain dog breeds in dishes. There must have been some Brit expatriate book with recipes, which I am glad I have successfully avoided to spot the reference.

Hamilton-Paterson treats the character Marta a little bit more tamely, she does have some blind spots in her view of herself, but nowhere near as much as Gerald. Her main flaw is that she probably drinks too much and picks fights with Gerald a bit too much. But as a foil to Gerald she is brilliant - she uses his Florence Foster Jenkins singing she hears as a basis for a film score.

In the end, the writing was good enough and the plot development as well to make it rise above just a throwaway satire. Think of it as the literary equivalent of "Zoolander".

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Goodreads friend Meliss recommended “Cooking with Fernet Branca” and I’m glad she did! Author James Hamilton-Paterson is hilarious.

This book is the first in a series revolving around Gerald Samper, ghostwriter of sports celebrity autobiographies. He’s good at it, but only does that kind of writing because it pays well. He’s not happy with his work.

Gerald’s hobby is cooking: experimenting and creating recipes. He shares some of these with the reader, recipes such as “Rabbit in Cep Custard.” Yes, he creates recipes no one would want to eat and graciously shares the information.

Gerald needs peace and quiet to compose his autobiographies and so buys a house on a mountain in northern Tuscany. There is only one other residence nearby.
As Gerald considers whether to buy the house, the real estate agent assures the British ex-pat that his neighbor is only in residence one month out of the year and the author will have the needed quiet.
The neighbor arrives. Marta is from Eastern Europe and has bought the other house for the peace she needs to write musical scores for popular movies. That same real estate agent tells her she will have the requisite silence; her neighbor is only in his house one month out of the year.

While each demands quiet to do their work, neither is quiet while working. This leads to altercations on both sides. The story shifts back and forth with each taking a turn telling the story. Part of the humor comes from the contrast of how the two see themselves compared to how their near neighbor perceives them. Not only does neither value the other as they both feel they should be valued, neither believes the other is actually doing the work they claim.

Hamilton-Paterson writes with a sly wit as he presents the thoughts of each imposed upon neighbor.

This book had me laughing out loud at times. It is great literary escapism and I plan to move on to the next book in the series.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gerald, a writer of cheesy celebrity biographies, and Marta, a composer from a fictional former Soviet-bloc country, buy adjacent houses in Tuscany. Each one has also assured by a sleazy real estate agent that their property will afford them utter peace and quiet. Comedy ensues.

Oddly, this book slowly descended from four stars to three as I continued reading it. I laughed hilariously during the first chapter, and then became less and less charmed by the book as it continued. I'm not quite sure why -- maybe it was that Gerald's voice started to wear on me a bit. And I think part of the problem, frankly, was that I didn't quite get the satire, as the target -- expat Europeans living in Tuscany -- is a bit beyond my ken.

Still, it's fun to spend time with these two very unreliable narrators, and even if you don't quite grasp the satire, the narrative is a ripping yarn whose style keeps things crackling along nicely. And the chapter where each one finally realizes that the other's seemingly preposterous stories are actually true is wonderful and worth the price of the book. The mock recipes are also hilarious, although you might want to avert your eyes if you're a member of PETA.

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

No summary is better than the one already patly written on this site. "Gerald Samper, an effete English snob, has his own private hilltop in Tuscany, where he wiles away his time working as a ghostwriter for celebrities and inventing wholly original culinary concoctions-including ice cream made with garlic and the bitter, herb-based liqueur of the book's title. Gerald's idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, on the run from a crime-riddled former soviet republic. A series of hilarious misunderstandings brings this odd couple into ever closer and more disastrous proximity."

Helicopters, insane recipes, movie shoots, drunken gambols and ingenious score writing are all part and parcel of this excellent novel. I can't count the number of times I laughed out loud. Cheekily written and refreshingly witty, this novel really made my summer. (Also: is it a sign of my culinary strangeness that quite a few of Samper's recipes actually sounded delish? His Lychee on toast in particular. AND, you'd better damn well believe I'll be trying some Fernet Branca in the near future. 40% alcohol content!!)

[Michael Aitken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early days yet. Nice piece of social satire, echoes of Tom Sharpe (Wilt etc) and others. The cooking angle is a major bonus, as is the dual point of view. Marvellous fanciful recipes.

Brilliant section in Chapter 20 (round p 114) - a very funny passage where Gerry tells his guest about cruelty to vegetables. Reminded me of a wonderful Umberto Eco piece (ijFoucault's Pendulum) about improbable university faculties - Chair of irrigation at the University of the Sahara, etc.

A great read, but patchy. Two stick in my mind - Chapter 34, which has goos style, but is rather an anticlimax (where the filming at Marta's house completes, and predictably the damage is not made good... I suppose it will give Gerry and Marta something to argue about.

And a cheeky inconsistency in voice in Chapter 25, where Marta gives us the lowdown on the Italian

coast, while being painted as someone who doesn't know the 'west'.

These don't really hurt the book, which remains very funny. One of nicest moments is the way the Italian film director hates the fence.

[Misha · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’ve ever had a love-hate relationship with your neighbor, if you ever thought that Frances Mayes’ vision of expatriate Italy was a little too precious, if you enjoy novels with unusual recipes, and you enjoy Odd Couple comedies then this is the book for you! Gerald Sampson, who buys a villa in Tuscany, is a snobby Brit who ghostwrites books for sports stars and fancies himself an experimental cook—and he does experiment—with cat, otter and like the title says, lots of the herbal spirit, fernet branca! He even whips up a concoction called Alien Pie—but you’ll just have to discover that for yourself! His neighbor Marta is from the fictitious ex-Soviet country of Voynovia where her father is a Mob boss and is in Italy to work on a film score. Gerald and Marta get on each other’s nerves from day one—but the real comedy is in the fact that you get the story from both of them, and they each have a different version to tell! This is an oddball comedy that is a real send-up of running off to Italy for the good life.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious. Simply hilarious.

A Englishman buys a house in the mountains of Italy seeking quiet for his writing. He sings arias while he invents the most bizarre recipes, the products of which he sometimes shares with his aggravating neighbor, a woman from Voynovia, who generously shares bottles of Fernet Branca with him. She claims to be a musician and composer in town to compose music for a film by a famous Italian director.

Their experiences of living as neighbors differ depending on who does the narration, which gives the reader the opportunity to see both sides. Humor aside, what's clear is our culture colors impressions we form of people from countries we are unfamiliar with and these impressions are often false once we get to know the other person better or start to share a language with which to better communicate.

What this book is full of is humor and crazy capers. It's pure entertainment.